Finally. A full 10 days after a rather delicate operation I managed to row again today. To be honest this had not been an appealing thought AT ALL. I have been walking around like a cowboy and waking in the night with a yelp every now and again. Today was my first almost pain free day though it was drug assisted. I have been crawling up the walls without rowing (not to say putting on weight) and was desperate to do something. I had tried "dry rowing" sitting on the carpet a few times to see how the action of raising the knees felt and for most of the last week wild horses could not have dragged me to my erg.
But this morning I said to my wife that I could now see the possibility that I could row again "one day" so things were looking up. Then I had a quiet day and decided to give it a whirl (a spin?). A quick few strokes told me that I could row with a few (ahem) modifications to my leg position and length of stroke. I then did a gentle 1,000m. That went OK, and was relatively pain free. I was so full of joy that I decided to row some more. Since I have not rowed at all really since around 10th February for a variety of reasons (holiday, illness and op) and I am on the back end of a chest infection the obvious thing to do was a flat out 7 minutes for CTC(?). The plan was to go off at 1:45 and hold that until my heart rate reached 180 then sit at that heart rate until the last minute.
Aiming to rate high because of my stroke modifications (34-36 initially) I executed to plan. I was pleased (in a funny sort of way) that most of the pain was from my op rather than my lungs and legs. I must be getting better after my woeful rows a couple of weeks ago. The final tally was 1,964m @ 1:46.9 and I am confident I can beat that after a few weeks of getting myself straight.
Gentle warm down and I was done. Yippee!
Metres today: 4,047
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